When they arrive at Manderley, however, Mr. and Mrs. De Winter are met at the door by the sinister housekeeper Mrs. Danvers. A cold, imposing woman, Mrs. Danvers has been with the house for many years and poses quite an intimidating and frightening figure to the new, young mistress of Manderley. Mrs. Danvers words and actions make her smug disdain for the second Mrs. De Winter quite apparent from the very beginning and the reason for her behavior soon becomes clear: she absolutely adored Rebecca.
Joan Fontaine as the second Mrs. De Winter and Judith Anderson as Mrs. Danvers, Rebecca (1940)Manderley's West Wing has become a shrine to Rebecca's memory. Mrs. Danvers keeps Rebecca's bedroom exactly as it was when she was alive, down to the silver hairbrush on the nightstand. In her eyes, Rebecca was the perfect woman: tall, beautiful, stylish, charming, a perfect hostess. As far as Mrs. Danvers is concerned, no one could ever take her place as mistress of Manderley. The new Mrs. De Winter is young, clumsy, uncertain, barely out of school, and is in no way prepared for the poise and responsibility her new station requires. She constantly agonizes about living up to Rebecca's precedence and about troubling Maxim by mentioning Rebecca's name.
After committing one social blunder after another, the new Mrs. De Winter attempts to host a fancy dress ball, as Rebecca had done in the past. At Mrs. Danvers' suggestion, she decides to replicate the costume worn by a beautiful woman in one of the portraits hanging in the gallery, with disastrous results: Rebecca had worn the same costume at the ball she hosted just before her death.
The night of the ball, there is a great thunderstorm, which results in a shipwreck on the cliffs just behind the house. Just as Mrs. Danvers is taunting the second Mrs. De Winter, comparing her to Rebecca convincing her to throw herself out of the upstairs window, a messenger from the local police arrives at the house. A scuttled boat and a body have been discovered and the rings on the dead person's hand are Rebecca's. This revelation leads Maxim to confess to the second Mrs. De Winter that Rebecca was nowhere near the perfect woman most people saw. In actual fact, she was cruel, willful, and adulterous during their marriage and after taunting Maxim with her affairs and the suggestion that she was pregnant with another man's child, he became enraged and strangled her, sinking her body along with her boat.
At the inquest, a verdict of suicide is brought, since it is unclear who drilled the holes in Rebecca's boat. Her cousin (and former lover) Jack Favell has a letter from Rebecca which he claims as proof that Rebecca would never have committed suicide and attempts to blackmail Maxim with it. A visit to Rebecca's doctor reveals that not only did Rebecca have cancer but also a malformed uterus, which would have prevented her from ever having children. This proves to be ample evidence of Rebecca's motivation for suicide and the case is dropped.
Mr. and Mrs. De Winter return to Manderley to find that Mrs. Danvers has fled and that the estate has been burned to the ground. The two of them then leave the country and travel from one hotel to another, leaving their memories of the past behind.
Source: Du Maurier, Daphne. Rebecca. New York: Avon, 1974. Print.
